Most city salaries trail
other metros
By William Pack
San Antonio Express-News

Web Posted : 09/10/2001

Aside from the city manager,
few city employees are drawing high-level salaries when compared to the top
salaries paid in four other cities across the Southwest.

In addition, workers on
the bottom end of the scale in San Antonio have more ground to make up than
minimum-wage workers do in most of the other cities.

A San Antonio Express-News
survey last week of city salaries in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, San Diego and
San Antonio shows that:

First-year City Manager
Terry Brechtel earns one of the highest salaries in the Southwest. Her $200,000
salary was second only to the $263,027 salary paid to Dallas City Manager Teodoro
Benavides among the five cities surveyed. Houston has no city manager, but its
mayor, Lee P. Brown, earns $165,817.

Far fewer city executives
in San Antonio make more than $100,000 when compared to other large regional
cities. Twenty-two of San Antonio's 12,100 employees fall into the $100,000-plus
club. More than five times that number earn more than $100,000 in Dallas' city
government, which employs 13,500 people. Houston, with almost twice as many
employees as San Antonio, had the second-fewest number of six-figure employees
at 43.

The $6.25-an-hour wage
paid to some temporary employees in San Antonio is the second-lowest rate paid
in the five cities. Houston pays a $6-an-hour wage to 30 part-time employees.
The other cities pay at least $8.24 an hour to employees, whether part time
or full time.

The survey comes at a time
when the city is establishing its spending plan for the 2002 fiscal year and
employee unions are clamoring for bigger salary boosts.

"We would like to
have a piece of the pie, also," Zeke Castillo, a Service Employees International
Union Local 100 member, told the City Council during a public hearing on the
budget.

Castillo, 61, said he earns
$6.90 an hour after three years working as a temporary employee with the Parks
and Recreation Department.
Mayor Ed Garza said the city has made "significant strides" to raise
the prospects of its lowest-paid employees, but he still wants the salary levels
to continue rising.

"It takes time, and
we have to do it within the means of the budget," he said. "The city
needs to be applauded, not criticized."

The temporary worker issue
has, however, generated criticism for the city, which announced last year that
it was raising its lowest wage level to $8.25 an hour. That was touted by the
city as a "living wage," or one that would keep a family of four out
of poverty.

Officials have been scrambling
for a way to explain why that increase did not apply to all temporary city workers,
those hired to fill in for permanent employees on leave or to handle overflow
demand during peak seasons for the parks department, the solid waste division
and other departments.

The starting wage for temporary
workers is $6.25 an hour. Local 100 officials said too many people were being
paid that rate, even after having worked for the city several years.

The union, using city data,
claimed that more than 2,500 city employees were paid $6.25 this year. City
officials said that number was unrealistically inflated by a glitch in the accounting
system. A June 1 count shows that 1,686 temporary hires were on the city payroll
and only 264 of them were paid $6.25 an hour.

The remainder earned more
than that, some up to $30 an hour, officials said.

Brechtel said her staff
is developing a plan to bring the wages of temporary employees up to $8.50 an
hour, which is the living-wage standard set for city employees in 2002.

"If they're doing
the job of a full-time employee, they should be making a living wage,"
Brechtel said.

The only employees who
may be excluded from the living-wage guarantees are student interns and other
temporary youth employees  "high school kids," as Brechtel said.
No decision has been made on what salary to pay that employee subgroup, which
could have as many as 200 people in it at various times, officials said.

Brechtel's proposed budget
for 2002 already includes $5.7 million more to increase the living-wage standard
and to provide other raises to non-uniformed personnel. The city manager also
hopes to provide $3.7 million to department heads for merit raises among non-uniformed
employees.

The budget proposes that
all non-executive-team members will get a 3 percent raise or the $8.50 living
wage, whichever is higher, while executive team members, or the city's leadership,
will receive 2 percent raises. Another $3.7 million is carved out of the budget
for merit raises.

Police and firefighters
are covered by separate collective bargaining agreements. The police budget
includes $5.9 million in raises in 2002. Firefighters are in the middle of negotiating
a new contract with the city.

The closer the city gets
to an $8.50-an-hour minimum wage, the more it will erase the minimum salary
gap that exists with Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego.

Officials in Phoenix said
that city's lowest paid position  a clerical trainee  draws $17,139
a year, or about $8.24 an hour. In San Diego, the lowest annual salary, $17,712,
is paid to a recreation aide. That total equates to about $8.52 an hour.

An $8.50-an-hour wage would
equate to $17,680 a year. If approved for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1,
it would mean that the lowest-paid full-time position in San Antonio would draw
$5,040, or 43 percent, more than it did five years ago.

In Dallas, the city gave
its employees a 10 percent across-the-board raise this year, which pushed the
minimum full-time salary to $10 an hour. Part-time workers in Dallas make at
least $8.80 an hour.

Only muted criticism has
been directed at San Antonio's top-end salaries, including the $200,000 pay
provided Brechtel after she accepted the post in March. Her salary is $23,535,
or 13 percent, higher than what was paid to the previous city manager, Alex
Briseño.

Mayor Garza said Briseño's
salary was far too low and that an increase was required to make sure top candidates
would seek and accept the job.

Communities Organized for
Public Service and its sister organization Metro Alliance, the loudest proponents
of a living wage, are intent on seeing temporary workers receive the $8.50-an-hour
wage promised to other employees. But they have not objected to the six-figure
salaries proposed.

"If they expect people
to do a good job, they need to pay them decent wages," said Sister Gabriella
Lohan, an alliance leader. "I can't say they pay too much at the upper
end. I do know they pay too little at the lower end."

Brechtel said continued
attention will be paid by her administration to lower paid employees because
that's where the greatest need is. After four consecutive years of higher raises
for the least paid, the city's average salary has surpassed $27,600, Brechtel
said.

Local 100 Chief Organizer
Wade Rathke acknowledged that the city has been trying to catch up on salaries
after years of lagging behind. He said he hopes the city maintains an open dialogue
with the union on salary issues because "there are still several ridges
to cross to get where we need to be."